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In the fourth century B.C. treatise "The Art of War," a work which remains required reading at military academies worldwide, China's renowned strategist Sun Tzu said: "Know your enemy and know yourself; into a hundred battles and away with a hundred victories."
Sound advice, but it was Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American architect of victory in Western Europe during World War II who offered the 20th century modern management maxim: "The sergeant is the army."
The May 10-14 fact-finding and relationship building mission to China by Admiral Timothy Keating, who was appointed head of the U.S. Pacific Command in March, highlighted differences in military mindsets regarding the function and value of senior ranking enlisted personnel by each country.
Keating's right-hand man at a May 12 press briefing in Beijing was U.S. Air Force Command Chief Master Sergeant Jim Roy, the senior enlisted advisor to the area. Roy's rank was created in November 1998 to indicate when a chief master sergeant from the USAF serves as leading non-commissioned officer for enlisted men and women across all service branches.
The admiral said he was "glad to have Jim with us, representing the tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who are engaged in military operations all throughout our vast region of responsibilities."
While top level officials on both sides are keen to learn more about the other, from the American viewpoint, the position of the upper echelon enlisted members within the People's Liberation Army (PLA), navy (PLA-N), and air force (PLA-F) remains enigmatic at best, lowly at worst.
On the issue of military-to-military exchanges Keating stated the United States wanted "to expand the profile of those engaged in discussions and field HQ exercises to include senior enlisted troops." He then asked Chief Master Sergeant Roy to express an opinion on the matter.
"Recruitment, training, employment and obviously retention," were major topics Roy listed. Saying that information was a "two-way street," he added, "I think it's a great idea to share what we do, along with looking at what, and how, the PLA military does things as well."
The sergeant characterized the visit as a "very healthy discussion to dispel mistrust" and said he looked forward to further exchanges with enlisted men as well as the officer corps to advance understanding.
Roy's response to a question about his meetings, compared to those of top brass commissioned officers during the trip, shone a spotlight contrasting the two militaries.
"Currently there is not a peer of my position in the PLA," he said. "They look at their enlisted corps more as technicians than as enlisted leaders."
China has been trying to professionalize its armed forces since the mid 1980s. In 2006 the country issued a White Paper stating the improvement of non-commissioned officer training was a main concern.
However, little on the surface appears to have changed since Dr. June Tuefel Dreyer, head of the Political Science Department at University of Miami and a specialist on the Chinese armed forces, published an analysis in 1997 that still rings true today.
"Despite provisions for it in tables of organization, China has no true non-commissioned officer corps as of yet. The PLA is currently using captains and lieutenants to perform tasks normally assigned to NCOs," she wrote.
Dreyer added that apart from the associated loss of efficiency, "units are deprived of the institutional memory that NCOs provide, with one group of recruits replacing another in rapid succession."
Last year's policy paper said a development goal of the PLA's 67 military institutions was to establish a new school system, one that shifted priority from "education of officer candidates for academic credentials to pre-assignment education."
The reform is supposed to offer elementary, intermediate and advanced level institutions and NCO schools, as well as pre-posting and rotational training for active-duty officers and high-ranking enlisted personnel.
Meanwhile the country's armed forces remain a mystery and a cause for serious concern to the United States. Until it truly makes time for sergeants, China's armed forces will not achieve success, according to the advice of its own strategic thinkers and those from abroad.
